Europe

Soccer venue

By The World ⋅ October 14, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
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The national soccer teams representing Turkey and Armenia got together for a big game today. So what? you might say, it’s just a game, right? True — from a soccer stand point.

Neither country has qualified for next year’s World Cup. But this game comes just days after Turkey and Armenia’s leaders signed historic agreements. Their handshake could go a long way towards ending nearly 100 years of hostility between the two countries. So where is this soccer match being played? It’s in Turkey’s 4th largest city — located to the south of the Sea of Marmara. This city on the ancient Silk Road was also once an Ottoman capital. But today it’s all about the Armenia vs Turkey soccer game.

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Geo Answer:

Today’s game comes just days after Turkey and Armenia agreed to establish diplomatic ties and to re-open borders.

We spoke with The World’s Aaron Schachter, just outside the stadium in Turkey, in Bursa at the edge of the Sea of Marmara.

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Discussion

2 comments for “Soccer venue”

  • Ara

    Your reporter from Turkey referred to the genocide of 1915 as a war fought between Turkey and Armenia. I would hope that you can check the facts on this and clarify for your listeners tomorrow. The Armenians who were massacred were citizens of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks, who were a nationalist/secularist/socialist group ended up planning the murder of the Empire’s Armenian population because, as Turkey was coming into existence out of the ashes of the Empire, they were attempting to share as little land as possible with the ottoman Empire’s other ethnic minorities.
    It is sad enough that I have to hear about a “supposed” genocide. It is wholly something else when the massacre is described as a war.

    Thank You,
    Ara Shirinyan

  • Nathalie

    I was honestly shocked to hear your reporters refer to the 1915 Armenian Genocide as an “alleged” event. There is an absolute consensus among the international scholarly community about what happened. It was disheartening to hear a serious program like PRI talk about the Armenian Genocide as if it were a contested topic of debate. Your segment was all the more disappointing considering the fact that most listeners don’t know anything about the issue and took what you said at face value.